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WE'RE rich because they're poor. No proposition is more central to the left-wing view of the world than the idea that the rich West survives in its comfort because it exploits the poor in the Third World.

Another is the idea that poverty causes crime, when it is crime that causes poverty. Or the idea that poverty causes social disfunction, broken families, vice, when it is social disfunction and broken families that cause poverty.

This is certainly the case in the US, where structural poverty largely a non-issue.

There are three kinds of poverty. If you were parachuted into a virgin forest, you would be rich in assets but since they are yet undeveloped you may miss a few meals and find yourself living in whatever hovel you can scratch together with your bare hands. Thats one kind, and it still exists in undeveloped regions of the world.

The second kind is caused by the lack of legal clarity. This is the kind found throughout most of the developed Third World. Clear and predictable laws, honest courts, protection of individuals and their property will resolve this kind of poverty, but it seems impossible because the predominant political philosophies and moral culture keeps them locked in a rather toxic status quo.

The third kind is the kind we largely see in the US, caused as I said earlier by crime, social disfunction, broken families, and the cultural nihilism that takes root in these conditions.

The leftist view of poverty is a cartoon sketch of a problem they do not understand. They don't understand where wealth comes from so they can never understand how to resolve poverty.